Joy in the Wounding
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPGW, HPDM. Draco sits still for a long time after he sees the article in the Prophet about the Chosen One and his wife divorcing. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Joy in the Wounding

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Ginny, future Harry/Draco

**Warnings: **Angst, present tense, Draco being a bastard

**Rating:** R

**Wordcount: **1800

**Summary:** Draco sits still for a long time after he sees the article in the _Prophet _about the Chosen One and his wife divorcing.

**Author's Notes: **The title is from a fragment of Sappho translated by A. S. Kline.

**Joy in the Wounding**

Draco sits still for a long time after he sees the article in the _Prophet _about the Chosen One and his wife divorcing.

They call him that, even now, Draco notes absently, bending in until his nose almost touches the page. The Chosen One. But it's the photograph more than the words Draco is interested in, the photo of Potter standing with his head hunched down between his shoulders while the cameras snap and questions fly about why the divorce is happening.

_Potter and his wife, Ginny Weasley, have been married for three years, _the article blathers. _Everyone thought they were deliriously happy together…_

"Deliriously," Draco whispers, and draws a hand down his throat, so that he can feel the pulse beating there and the dryness building up. "That's a good word."

He can think of the way Potter looked on the day he proposed. Going down on one knee in the Great Hall in front of Draco and everyone, the velvet-lined box with the ring extended. Draco could see even from his less than privileged position at the Slytherin table that the ring had real diamonds, tiny ones, inlaid around a central ruby that flashed fire.

Draco couldn't imagine how much the ring must have cost, although his parents owned many expensive jewels. But he knew that Potter didn't care, probably hadn't noticed the price. The look in his eyes as Weasley reached out slowly and picked up the ring said he had been too blinded by joy to remember numbers.

Said that the fire in her eyes meant more than the fire of the gems.

Now Draco turns to the picture of Weasley on the page opposite Potter, her head bowed and her long red hair hanging over her shoulders as she tries to hurry out of the frame. He wants to see whether she wears the ring, but the picture shows no trace of her hands. She simply runs, and Draco sighs and sits back. He hopes Potter gets to keep the ring. The divorce will probably cost him, in terms of time and attention heaped on him from the press if not money, and he could use some reward.

_You know what his reward is going to be._

Draco shivers absently, and taps his wand on the paper, enchanting it to float before him in midair. He's in the comfortable old green armchair that his grandfather used to love, in the eastern sitting room. It is morning, bright morning, the light pouring through the windows, slanting over the chair. It turns the deep green color of the cloth to a more worn, ordinary green.

Like the color of Potter's eyes, now that Draco has a chance to compare.

He slides a hand gently down his trousers, working his fingers back and forth, giving himself a chance to feel his own warm belly, nearly as warm as the sun. He takes hold of himself, sliding his hand up and down through the cloth. He wanks like this sometimes, though not usually at this time of day. Early morning is for the long, leisurely wanks in bed, where he's naked, and can take his time.

He rolls his head back, side to side, the tension melting out of his neck as he goes. This is what he wants, and when he opens his eyes and looks at Potter's photograph again, the man has lowered his shoulders a little to stare at him.

"I'm going to give you this," Draco mouths to him. He's never wanked in front of a wizarding photograph before and has no idea whether they can actually respond. This one just stares, which could mean something either way.

When he starts to turn to regard his former wife on the other side of the page, though, Draco shakes his head. He will keep his eyes just on Potter's eyes. He will not ruin his own fantasy with thoughts that Potter might still love his wife, might still regret the divorce.

He'll find him. He'll go from lonely pub to lonely pub until he finds him. The press will think that Potter is best found in public places, or well-known ones, like ducking in and out of the Weasleys' home. Only Draco knows him well enough to know that he'll prefer some lonely place where everyone cares more about getting drunk than babbling out their adoration of Harry Potter.

Draco will slide into the chair beside him, and smile at him. Potter won't notice for a moment, concentrating on his drink. Firewhisky, Draco thinks, eyes shutting harder as his fingers reach the head of his shaft and stroke back down. The thought of the brilliant gold-amber color in the glass makes him harder.

Potter will stare at Draco. His hands will fist. His head will jerk. He'll look like he wants to stand up and leave the table.

And Draco will reach out and put his hand on Potter's, holding him there, holding him still.

Potter will stare back and forth between Draco's hand and his face, not understanding. In all the time they've fought and snarled and ignored each other, Draco has never done anything like this before.

But he will now, he will then, because Potter's photograph is new, and so is the lifting of the delirium that characterized his adoration of Weasley. Draco will lean back and smile long and slow and say, "I can make you happy."

That is what will make Potter pause, he knows. Not some declaration of lust; he will have heard a lot of them, by then, drunken offers to do anything he wants, to help him forget "the whore" or "the bitch." But Draco has no interest in insulting Weasley. She has done her part. He intends only to rejoice in the wounds she has left behind.

His hand moves faster, stroking himself, as Potter says (will say), "What?"

"I can make you happy," Draco will repeat. Not "want to make you happy," although on a certain level, that's true. But the confidence is what will take Potter. Draco will stand outside the whirling, fragmented chaos that his life has divided into. There was happiness, and now there is not. To be able to get back to that stable part of it, to be part of the happiness again, will attract Potter more than any mere offer of pleasure or revenge, Draco knows.

If Potter needs revenge, needs to know that living well with someone who wants him will hurt his wife, well, Draco can offer that. But he doesn't think that Potter will, and it's not something he plans to focus on. What he's interested in is the wound Weasley left, the opening at Potter's side he can fill.

"How can you do that?" Potter will ask, his teeth catching at his lip. "You can't get her back for me."

His voice will sink, and Draco will shake his head and stand up. "I'm not interested in the reasons you're divorcing," he will say, and flick his head a bit. Potter will be most convinced if Draco shows off how little the weapons that caused the wounds matter to him. "Maybe someday you can tell me, if you want. But there are other ways to be happy."

"How?" Potter will whisper, thinking it surreal, strange, to be having this conversation in a pub, but also intrigued by the sheer strangeness.

Draco will lean forwards, and put a hand on the back of his neck, and kiss him.

It will be a kiss of a kind that Draco has never had to use, has never used before. He knows that. Not because Potter matters so much, not because he will be kissing someone who has probably never kissed a man before, although both of those things are true. But because he will want to, and the desire will burn through him, and he will place that desire into the kiss.

There will be heat shimmering between them, when his tongue strokes Potter's. There will be shattering heat, all along their limbs, and then it will race back, reach back, and focus on their mouths. Potter's lips will fall open as he gasps, and Draco will touch further inside with his tongue, Potter's teeth and the insides of his cheeks, warm flesh and thickness of surprise and sweetness of taste.

He will absorb it all. He will kiss until their teeth click and Potter pulls back from him, one hand on his mouth as though he doesn't know whether to wipe away the taste or push it further into himself.

And Draco will smile, and bow his head a little, letting Potter have the novel experience of being stared at because of being kissed in public, instead of his scar. He will wait until he is sure that Potter doesn't intend to speak, although he will really be sure of it right away. No need to contradict truth, if it turns out differently than his fancies. He'll wait, and then nod and take Potter's hand for a moment.

"It's there, if you want it," he will say. "The offer. It still stands," he'll add, because Potter's eyes will be so wide, and wild, and wondering.

Then he will turn and walk out of the pub, knowing that mystery waits behind him, and hope ahead.

Draco arches his neck back and cries out as his strokes speed up, until he is quivering on the edge of a release so primal it makes him ache. Then he touches in _just _the right place, and the heat spreads through him, down, instead of into his mouth, the way he imagined it doing with Potter.

(Will imagine. The way it _will_).

And he slumps back and closes his eyes, his body all one low, loose throb of pleasure. He licks his lips and thinks of Potter, the fantasy becoming the photograph in the paper in his head. There are both of them, they are waiting, and Draco can't wait to see what will happen beyond that fantasy. The futures he can't predict have always been the most exciting, now that he is past the war and knows that none of them can include the Dark Lord.

He opens his eyes, ready for the wounds that this experience will tear open in him, the ones it has already torn in Potter.

And it is morning, bright morning.

**The End.**


End file.
